The Life and Labors of Elias Hicks

by Henry Watson Wilbur

John Hicks, the pioneer, was undoubtedly a man of affairs, with that strong character which qualifies men for leadership. In the concerns of the new community he was often drafted for important public service. In Seventh month, 1647, it became necessary to reach a final settlement with the Indians for land purchased from them by the colonists the year before. The adjustment of this transaction was committed to John Hicks by his neighbors. When, in 1663, the English towns on the island and the New York mainland created a council whose aim it was to secure aid from the General Court at Hartford against the Dutch, John Hicks was made a delegate from Long Island. In 1665 Governor Nicoll, of New York, called a convention to be composed of two delegates from each town in Westchester County and on Long Island, "to make additions and alterations to existing laws." John Hicks was chosen delegate from the town of Hempstead.

Thomas, the great grandfather of Elias, was in 1691 appointed the first judge of Queens County, by Governor Andross, which office he held for a number of years, with credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents.

The town of Hempstead is on the north side of Long Island, and borders on the Sound. There Elias Hicks, the fifth in line of descent from the pioneer John, was born on the 19th of Third month, 1748. He was the fourth child of John and Martha Smith Hicks. Of the ancestry of the mother of Elias little is known. There is no evidence that the ancestors of Elias on either side were members of the Society of Friends, still they seem to have had much in common with Friends, and, at any rate, were willing to assist the peculiar people when the heavy hand of persecution fell upon them. In this connection we may quote the words of Elias himself. He says: "My father was a grandson of Thomas Hicks, of whom our worthy friend Samuel Bownas[1] makes honorable mention in his Journal, and by whom he was much comforted and strengthened when imprisoned through the envy of George Keith,[2] at Jamaica, on Long Island."[3]

[1] Samuel Bownas was a minister among Friends, and was born in Westmoreland, England, about 1667. He secured a minute to make a religious visit to America the latter part of 1701. Ninth month 30, 1702, he was bound over to the Queens County Grand Jury, the charge against him being that in a sermon he had spoken disparagingly of the Church of England. The jury really failed to indict him, which greatly exasperated the presiding judge, who threatened to deport him to London chained to the man-of-war's deck. It was at this point that Thomas Hicks, whom Bownas erroneously concluded was Chief Justice of the Province, appeared to comfort and assure him that he could not thus be deported to England. Bownas continued in jail for about a year, during which time he learned the shoemaker's trade. He was finally liberated by proclamation.

[2] George Keith, born near Aberdeen, 1639, became connected with the Society of Friends about 1662. He came to America in 1684, but finally separated from Friends, and endeavored to organize a new sect to be called Christian, or Baptist Quakers. This effort failed, and about 1700 he entered the Church of England. After this he violently criticised Friends, and repeatedly sought controversy with them. He had quite an experience of this sort with Samuel Bownas, and was considered the real instigator of the complaint on which Bownas was lodged in jail. Keith looms up large in all that body of history and biography unfriendly to the Society of Friends.

[3] Journal of Elias Hicks, p. 7.

We are told in the Journal, "Neither of my parents were members in strict fellowship with any religious society, until some little time before my birth."[4] It is certain that the father of Elias was a member among Friends at the time of his birth, and his mother must also have enjoyed such membership. Elias must have been a birthright member, as he nowhere mentions having been received into the Society by convincement. It is evident that his older brothers and sisters were not connected with Friends.

[4] Journal of Elias Hicks, p. 7.

When Elias was eight years of age his father removed from Hempstead to the south shore of Long Island, the new home being near the seashore. Both before and after that time he bewails the fact that his associates were not Friends, and what he confessed was worse—they were persons with no religious inclinations or connections whatever.

The new home afforded added opportunities for pleasure. Game was plentiful in the wild fowl that mated in the marshes and meadows, while the bays and inlets abounded in fish. Hunting and fishing, therefore, became his principal diversion. While he severely condemned this form of amusement in later life, he brought to the whole matter a rational philosophy. He considered that at the time hunting and fishing were profitable to him, because in his exposed condition "they had a tendency to keep me more at and about home, and often prevented my joining with loose company, which I had frequent opportunities of doing without my father's knowledge."